Postmedia film critic Jay Stone has seen the best of the best — and the worst of the worst. Lucky for us, he’ll be focusing on the best all summer, as he salutes the industry’s most talented, most sexy and most entertaining in his High Five series.

Best Picture
The nominees: Argo, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Amour, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Will win: Argo, which has overtaken Lincoln as the favourite and been sweeping up the hardware — BAFTA (the British Academy awards), the Golden Globes, the Producers Guild, Screen Actors Guild and more.

By Chris Knight
Michael Haneke cuts an imposing figure. Seated rigidly at one end of a long table in the windowless underground bunker of a hotel conference room during the Toronto International Film Festival, he is the very personification of no-nonsense.

It’s the year of the number.
There’s a digit after most of the big films of 2013, which is shaping up as a sequence of sequels: a third Iron Man, more Star Trek, another Hangover, a sixth opportunity to be both Fast and Furious .